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I am having an issue with the filters in CS. I am not a master of Photoshop by any means of the word, and I have more to learn than I know. However, after I open an image and go to use a filter, only six of the filters,(blur, noise,render, sharpen, stylize and video)are "black" and useable, where the others (Artistic, brush strokes, distort, pixelate, sketch and texture) are " gray" and unable to use. Did I somehow turn these off? I have used them many times before but can not figure out why I can not use them now. Please advise...I know it must be a simple fix...at least I hope!! Thank you in advance......Dino

I'm not familiar with CS5 but I'm wondering whether you are working on a duplicate layer or on the background layer. Try creating a duplicate layer and then look to see whether the filters are available for use.

I think this happens when you are not in 8bit mode? Check Image... Mode... and see if dropping down to 8 bit (or maybe it is 16bit) does it---one of the "higher bit" modes prevents many of the filters from working.

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4/19/2012 8:27:24 AM

Dino L. Rovera

Thank you Nikki and Christopher. Nikki, I was thinking along those lines too, but I had duplicated the background layer...so that was not the fix....thank you for your response though....Christopher, that was it. I was in 16bit mode. As soon as I switched over to 8 bit, all the filters were usable...I knew it had to be a quick fix.... BetterPhoto Community to the rescue once again...Thank you both!!